As mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets become increasingly common, so too does the likelihood that entities may seek to compromise a mobile device through the installation of spyware, adware, or other malicious applications. In some cases, users may wish to optimize the performance of their mobile devices. For example, a user may seek to optimize battery life by disabling or removing applications that consume power in excess of a certain threshold. On an unrestricted computing device, users may be able to run scanning software that detects malicious applications or optimizes performance directly on the computing device. Traditional implementations of such scanning applications typically require access to information regarding the current state of the computing device being scanned.
However, some mobile computing platforms (e.g., mobile operating systems and/or hardware platforms) may place limits on applications running on mobile devices. For example, a smart phone's operating system may sandbox applications from each other such that a given application is not allowed to see what other applications are installed on the smart phone. As such, it may be difficult or impossible for traditionally implemented applications to perform operations that scan or modify a mobile device on restricted mobile computing platforms. Accordingly, the instant disclosure identifies and addresses a need for additional and improved systems and methods for performing operations on restricted mobile computing platforms.